Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure pertains in general to the field of medical implants and methods therefore. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a method of manufacturing a medical implant or structures for a medical implant. Even more particularly the disclosure relates to manufacturing of structures for cardiovascular interventions, in particular embodiments provided as left atrial appendage occluders or left auricular appendix occluders.
Description of the Prior Art
An occluder is a medical product or implant used for occluding defects e.g. in the human heart. Defects may occur in various regions of the heart and have different forms. Defects in the septum of the atrium are common.
The occluders can be inserted using minimally invasive cardiac catheter techniques, more precisely by means of a transvenous, catheter-interventional access.
Being projections from the atria, auricles are parts of the heart and not defects. In the case of patients who are susceptible to atrial fibrillation or suffering from arrhythmia, the auricle may be the origin of blood clots. Thus, occluding the left auricle can prevent the creation of thrombi and reduce the risk of a stroke.
There are some left atrial appendage (LAA) occluders known for this purpose. However, it may be difficult to make the LAA occluders stay in the right position once implanted. The LAA occluder in US2011054515 A solves this by the use of barbs. Another LAA occluder is known from EP2263553 A. In this document, the positioning of the occluder is secured by the use of hooks. However, the use of hooks or barbs for securing the positioning of an occluder may damage the body tissue surrounding the barbs or hooks. This is in particular true for LAA defects which often have a very thin surrounding tissue. Aneurism penetration is another issue to be avoided in an example. Penetration of surrounding tissue by barbs may cause undesired leakage through the puncture site, e.g. into the interior of the endocardial sack surrounding the heart muscle.
JP 2004/049806 A discloses a stent for insertion into a tubular-shaped organ, such as a blood vessel of a human body. The stent has a U-shaped member, which is entwined with a peripheral section of an intersection (refer to abstract). The purpose of the U-shaped member is to hold the different sections together, not to secure the position of the stent.
Thus, there is a need for another mechanism for securing a position of the occluder. This is particularly important for LAA occluders, since the left atrial wall is rather thin and should preferably not be perforated.
Hence, an improved occluder, which upon implantation does not damage the surrounding body tissue, would be advantageous.